Sundays are for continuing to stay inside. Here’s the best writing about videogames from the past week.

In a remarkable piece for Vice, Jess Morrissette laid out the toxicity-endorsing marketing practices of companies in the early 2000s. The headline is a little overstated, seen as Morrissette does recognise the mutually reinforcing relationship between players who brought toxicity and the companies who capitalised on it.

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This week, Mount & Blade 2’s early access launch date was moved up by one whole day, Epic Games launched a publishing scheme, Half-Life: Alyx was the talk of the town, and that ol’ new coronavirus continued to disrupt things. Read on for more of the week’s PC gaming goings-on in our News Digest, and do also check out the Weekly Updates Update for the week’s big patches.

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It’s not a great time for physical games. While us videogames lot are enjoying more time than ever to play, it’s practically impossible to run a weekly board or card game meet when all the shops are shut and any human interaction could lead to contracting a (potentially deadly) virus. In an effort to keep the magic alive, Wizards Of The Coast are running three weeks of special Friday Night Magic events to help MTG communities stay alive online with Magic: The Gathering Arena.

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This week, Half-Life: Alyx got a few post-launch tweaks, Mordhau added a new map, and Rainbow Six Siege unleashed a horrifying man of pizza. Read on for more of the week’s PC gaming patches in The Weekly Updates Update.

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Google Stadia might still be struggling to find its place in people’s living rooms. But for one studio’s home offices, it’s becoming an invaluable piece of tech. After Covid-19 hit their home state of Washington pretty hard, Destiny 2 developers Bungie have explained the beefy laptops and cloud streaming workarounds that aim to keep Guardians fighting while working from home.

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It’s an infinite universe, you know. And if there’s life out there, there’ll be absolutely tons of it. Loads and loads and loads of planets, with unfathomable numbers of worms and that to categorise. But the human imagination is, alas, less infinite. And so, even though there could be as many games about exploring alien oceans as there are (potentially) alien oceans to explore, any such game will instantly be compared with the mighty Subnautica, and will have to work hard to prove its originality, if it wants to make a name for itself.

Enter, then, In Other Waters. It’s one of the games the RPS VidBuds have been playing this week as part of Rezzed Digital, and indeed, its premise is near identical to Subnautica’s: someone is stuck on a watery alien world, and explores the local ecosystem while working away at some larger mysteries. But beyond that premise, it takes a wildly different approach to almost every element of its design, to the point where comparison is near-meaningless. And you know what? It’s bloody brilliant.

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For as long as there’s been Minecraft, there’s been people who want to re-create the world in Minecraft. For one modder, though, it’s not enough to have a to-scale replica of our pale blue dot recreated in Mojang’s block-builder. A new project named Build The Earth is looking for talented builders with too much time on their hands, bringing them together to fully recreate every last man-made structure on Earth in Minecraft.

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The RPS VidBuds have put up a bunch of let’s plays as part of Rezzed Digital, as this year’s iteration of the usual Indies Uncovered stream, and they’ve already found some solid games in the pack. But one of the surprise standouts from the bunch, for me at least, is Unspottable.

I hadn’t heard of Unspottable before, but after watching VidBud Matthew and Hardware Queen Katharine play together, I am both impressed and intrigued. It’s a multiplayer versus game where you have to blend in with a group of identical NPC robots (or robits, as is more correct), whilst also trying to spot which robits are your fellow players. Once you think you have spotted an interloper, you must deal with them in the traditional manner of dealing with interlopers: that is to say, you punch them a good’un.

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The killing fields are open, team. Predator: Hunting Grounds‘s free weekend kicked off last night, letting you skulk about a lush open forest full of heavily-armed soldiers, super-powered alien mercenaries, and enough mud to give Hollywood’s favourite muscle-man a mud bath three-times over – all without spending a penny.

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Right. Well. It’s a bizarre situation we find ourselves in (and I do hope you are in), and I am here to provide you with your weekly dose of free games. I can’t deny that it’s rather surreal to turn on my video game machine (that’s my computer) and behave as though everything is some semblance of normal. While this routine remains the same, so many other things do not.

The games below the cut are a mishmash of things — games with peaceful meditations, games with poems, games to celebrate and bemoan being in isolation, and a rhythm game so difficult I might as well be Miles Teller in Whiplash.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re well, safe, and taking care of each other.

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